Resisting Everything but Temptation

A few things that have made me extremely happy in recent days:

White Collar

What New York Used to Be by giandujakiss (Peter/Neal vid rec)
The tight editing on this is a joy to watch. I also love the mirroring/in sync moments with Peter. This is an ultimate 'ship recruiter vid, completely convincing and wonderfully thorough at getting across who Neal is, who Peter is, and how they make magic together.

Supernatural

My Shangri-La Beneath the Summer Moon by tesserae_ (Sam/Dean, NC17)
Sam/Dean fans, you really need to read this. This might be my all-time favorite Grand Canyon story, and that's saying a lot. As much of a sucker as I am for protective big-brother Dean, I might be even more in love with Sam as protective little-brother, showing Dean how well he knows and loves him.

Drown Me in Your Reign by anon (written for ME :D for spnspringfling) (Sam/Dean, NC17)
I'd like to think that the show will give Sam's psychological issues some more play, but even if (by some miracle) they do, it won't be as good as fanfic like this. Delicious imagery, tender caring, and wonderfully intimate, hot sex.

I Picked You Up (And Put You Back On Solid Ground) by anon (for spnspringfling) (Sam/Dean, NC17)
Lovely, protective boys (both of them!), emotionally messy, and satisfying—particularly the vivid picture of how Sam sees Dean.

Time Out by ratherastory (Gen, hurt!Sam)
Wonderful hurt-comfort story. Post Simon Said, Sam has a terrible migraine, and Dean takes care of him. Thank you to geckoholic for the rec.

make this go on by maco2111 (Gen, hurt!Dean)
Beautifully written, short but powerful piece in which Sam comforts Dean after Hell. It's always been very hard for me to read post-Hell Dean stories, for which I blame the fact that Jensen was incredibly convincing at portraying PTSD. I thought this one was both believably traumatic and believably comforting.

I want to make several posts about panels and such at Escapade, but first, a post about the Escapade Saturday night vidshow. For those who got the DVDs, feochadn is responsible for the festive and stylish graphics, and the photographs used for them. She also (with help from melina and mlyn and I'm not sure who else? But not me!) made the vidshow itself flow smoothly and look and sound very nearly as perfect as possible.

My part of the job was to compose the show and master the DVDs. Since a few people asked me, I'll clarify that this year's show was about 50/50 submitted vids and requested vids. There have been many comments over the years about shows that were light on favorite fandoms, or light on slash vids, so this year I took the bit and ran with it a little, and composed a show that I thought would please the majority of the attendees and show an interesting variety of tones, fandoms, characters, musical styles, etc. while keeping in mind that this is very much a slash con. It was really interesting to see how that played out, and how the attendees responded. Maybe I learned some stuff. Let's hope! I do know that I adored this show and all the vidders who contributed, whether on their own or at my pleading.

VIDSHOW PLAY ORDER

1 Walking on the Sun by giandujakiss (Lost Girl)
2 *Cooler Than Me by anoel (Glee)
3 **Blackbird by Clucking Belles (Imagine Me and You)
4 Under the Sheets by almostgaby (Inception)
5 **Bad Romance by smutcutter (Star Trek: DS9)
6 Hateful by mlyn (White Collar)
7 **Stronger Than Dirt by fahrbotdrusilla (Watchmen)
8 *Mama Said Knock You Out by talitha78 (NCIS: LA)
9 *Lost Cause by gwyn_r (Justified)
10 *Breathe You In by Holdt (Stargate SG-1)
11 Something's Gotta Give by lamardeuse (Hawaii 5-0)
12 This Town's Religion by destina (Top Gun)
13 The Humbling River by feochadn (Red Cliff)
14 *Remembrance by hsv_fangirl (Star Wars: The Phantom Menace)
15 Trust No One by Loki (Supernatural)

INTERMISSION

16 *Running Up That Hill by gwyn_r (Prison Break)
17 All the Way by greensilver (Invisible Man)
18 Heartbreaker by destina and barkley (Southland)
19 Critical Hit by jarrow (Big Bang Theory)
20 Little Plastic Castle by marina (Lost Girl)
21 Not Responsible by lamardeuse (Sherlock)
22 *Pocketful of Sunshine by talitha78 (Kings)
23 They Want More by bironic (Jurassic Park)
24 *Sex and Reruns by greensilver (Community)
25 *When I'm Up I Can't Get Down by deejay (Takin' Over The Asylum)
26 Square One by killabeez (Appaloosa)
27 Are We Real? by wistful_fever (Hawaii 5-0)
28 Last Friday Night by estalita_11 (Star Trek: TOS)

Three bonus vids on the DVD:
29 *Because I'm Awesome by anoel (Glee)
30 *Up Where We Belong by talitha78 (Community)
31 *Wicked Game by Holdt (Stargate SG-1)

I received several comments that people really enjoyed the combination submission-based/curated vidshow, because it included a lot of variety, plenty of slash (and nearly all of our current favorite fandoms), and a good pace/show length. These comments were so valuable-- thank you! ETA: Because I had a couple of people ask me, I've indicated:

* = Vid submitted to the show (as oppposed to requested by me)
** = Premiering vid submitted to the show

A general comment from me about something I noticed at the vid review: the vast majority of these vids were stronger as the vid went on. This became quite apparent to me as we watched about the first minute of each vid, then turned it off to talk about it. It makes sense, that we'd save all the best stuff for the end of the vid -- but it sort of made me wonder if we should concentrate a bit more on winning our audience over in that first minute, especially in a multifandom con setting. Vids that stood out to me as not sharing this unbalanced weaker-at-the-beginning feeling were "Running Up That Hill," "The Humbling River," "Something's Gotta Give," and "Mama Said Knock You Out" -- which, interestingly, received some of the most universally positive feedback and reaction from the audience. I don't think this is coincidence.

Smutcutter and M'lyn ran the vid review. They identified several vids that they wanted to talk about, and then we spent the last twenty minutes or so taking requests from the audience. I wrote down what people said, but not who said it, and tried to clarify the context a bit. So, what follows are the notes I took more or less as things were said, pretty close to unvarnished except where I tried to contextualize the sense of the conversation.

( Read comments from the Vid Review panel on Sunday )

That was a lot of coding, and I'm pretty wiped out, so please let me know if I made any mistakes in the links or anything. And please do feed the vidders, if you can!

tzikeh shared this hilariously funny and awesome Tiffani thing with me a few weeks ago, and since I am always late to the party, I assumed I was the last person on earth to see it. Apparently, not so.

So, if you haven't seen this before, I highly recommend you click. (However, it comes with a warning that you, like me, may find yourself with a hopeless crush on her by the time you finish watching it.)

Tiffani Thiessen is Busy. She would really love to do the cast reunion of Saved by The Bell on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, but she's got a sh*t ton of stuff going on!